How Improving Women’s Rights Helps Stop AIDS in Africa

Women in Africa are routinely deprived of rights to land, property, and housing—a situation contributing to, and worsened by, the AIDS epidemic.

As the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions has noted, throughout sub-Saharan Africa, “in many cases, subsequent to the HIV/AIDS related deaths of male partners or disclosure of their HIV/AIDS status, women are divested of their marital property, inheritance rights, livelihoods, and at times even their children, by relatives who forcibly evict them from their homes.”

Moreover, deprived of economic resources, women may be trapped in abusive relations where they are unable to take steps to protect themselves from HIV infection or seek treatment. Impoverished, women also have reduced capacity to cope with the disease.

Women living with HIV suffer abuse in health care, including discrimination, and violations of their consent to treatment and patient confidentiality. Forced or coerced sterilization of women living with HIV is unfortunately all too common, as documented in Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa.

Last month, however, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the main regional human rights body in Africa) has taken a stand on the side of justice.

In two landmark resolutions, it urged states to “protect and promote women’s right to land and property” and “to put in place mechanisms to ensure that women living with HIV are not subjected to coercion, pressure or undue inducement by health care providers ... in order to secure consent for sterilization.”

National laws reflecting the principles of free and informed consent in health care for women living with HIV

Information on HIV and reproductive health services in a language women understand

Regular trainings of medical personnel on human rights in health care

Investigation of allegations of involuntary sterilization of women living with HIV

Complaint mechanisms, legal assistance, and reparations for women who have been involuntarily sterilized

Women in Africa are one step closer to justice.

States must now take heed and ensure that critical human rights protections do not overlook half of the population. It is time to respect, protect, and fulfill the fundamental rights of African women.

Open Society supports the African Gender and Media Initiative; the Global Initiative for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; and the South Africa Litigation Centre, which successfully advocated for these resolutions.

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9 Comments

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Allan Maleche

posted on Dec 16, 2013

Tamar this is a fantastic blog. The two resolutions are very critical to our work in Kenya on women rights to inherit and own property as KELIN. The resolution on involuntary sterilization is equally timely at a time when we are dealing with the cases. We will put these two important resolutions to use to ensure women living with and affected with HIV in Kenya enjoy their human rights.

Thanks, Tamar, for updating on these important advances in international/regional human rights standards. And, while we certainly applaud the ACHPR, the passage of these resolutions is testament to the advocacy of many women's rights, human rights and PLHIV organizations (such as KELIN, mentioned above). Without the work of such organizations, individual women would have even less access to justice and international/regional human rights systems might have taken many more years to affirm/support greater access to justice for women living with and affected by HIV. For a recent report on similar circumstances in the Asia/Pacific region, please see http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/protecting-righ...

Tamar, thanks for sharing these important developments — activists and allies have a new tool to advance women's rights on these vital issues and I will certainly cite these resolutions in my advocacy work.

Yes Say to life. good work for women living with HIV in kenya. but kindly we have some more women living with HIV in some part of kenya can no access such information.how can your official reach other in 47 county and making difference in the livelihood.This is a milestone and an impact to our work in Nairobi with the women living with HIV in kenya and some are awards by NACC-Prof Alloys. Thanks Good